FCE Conference // Alex Byrne, "‘Gender’ Trouble"

The Foundations of Conceptual Engineering Conference
Generous support provided by New York University's New York Institute of Philosophy and by University of Oslo's Project ConceptLab.
Prof. Alex Byrne (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
"'Gender' Trouble"
Abstract:
A real-life example of conceptual engineering is the attempt to make ‘gender’ more than a synonym of ‘sex’, starting in the 1950s and 60s with the sexologist John Money and the psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, and continuing with various feminist writers in the 1970s and 80s. ‘Gender’ thus provides an interesting case study of how conceptual engineering works in practice. As the paper will recount, things did not go quite according to plan. Some wider morals will be tentatively suggested.